Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty kisses his wife Mary on May 23 before making his formal announcement speech in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said this afternoon he won’t sign a marriage pledge drafted by the Family Leader, an Iowa-based social conservative group.

Pawlenty joins Republican competitors Mitt Romney and Gary Johnson in rejecting the pledge, which calls for candidates to vigorously oppose anything but monogamous one-man/one woman marriage and to advocate for other conservative issues.

“I fully support traditional marriage. Unequivocally,” Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota, said in a written statement today.

“However, rather than sign onto the words chosen by others, I prefer to choose my own words, especially seeking to show compassion to those who are in broken families through no fault of their own.”

The Family Leader, led by Sioux City’s Bob Vander Plaats, an influential force among Iowa’s most conservative voters, has said it won’t endorse any candidate who doesn’t sign the 14-point “candidate vow.”

One provision calls for recognition that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives and greater financial stability and that children raised by their mother and father experience better learning, less addiction and less legal trouble.

Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich, in Iowa on Monday for a speech in the Family Leader lecture series, didn’t reject the pledge outright, but said it would need across-the-board changes before he’d be willing to sign it.

Only two Republican presidential hopefuls have penned their name on the pledge so far: Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann and Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, both of whom are unapologetically hard-right and are campaigning to win over Iowa conservative evangelicals.

Here’s Pawlenty’s full statement:

“Mary and I have been married for almost 24 years and have been blessed with two wonderful daughters. In all we do, we remain committed to our core values that are set out in scripture. We are saved by grace. As Christians we are to speak the truth, but to do so with love.

“Voters have a right to know about their leaders’ faith and values, and how those beliefs may shape their decisions. To that end, today my campaign released a new video in which both Mary and I speak directly and openly about our faith. I fully support traditional marriage. Unequivocally. The traditional family faces enormous challenges in America, and if elected I would vigorously oppose any effort to redefine marriage as anything other than between one man and one woman.

“I deeply respect, and share, Bob Vander Plaats’ commitment to promoting the sanctity of marriage, a culture of life, and the core principles of the Family Leader’s Marriage Vow Pledge. However, rather than sign onto the words chosen by others, I prefer to choose my own words, especially seeking to show compassion to those who are in broken families through no fault of their own.

“I respectfully decline to sign the pledge.”

The 14-point candidate vow calls for fidelity to one’s spouse, a cooling-off period for those seeking a fast divorce, recognition of the benefits of robust childbearing, action against any illegal pornography, and protection for women from forced prostitution and forced abortion.

It also demands the rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman forms of totalitarian control, downsizing of government, fierce defense of religious liberty, and termination of military policymakers who expose female soldiers to rape, torture or enslavement by the enemy while in forward combat roles.

Romney, a former governor from Massachusetts who is making his second bid for the White House, on Tuesday declared he wouldn’t sign the candidate vow.

A spokeswoman for Romney said he “strongly supports traditional marriage but he felt this pledge contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign.”

The first candidate to publicly reject the pledge was Johnson, a former governor from New Mexico. Johnson on Saturday said said he objected to it because it condemn gays, single parents, divorcees, Muslims, women who choose to have abortions “and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.”

Johnson later joined the backlash against a slavery reference in the vow’s preamble. That passage, which the Family Leader has since removed, claimed that a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father than an African-American born after the election of the country’s first black president.

Some interpreted that as suggesting slave children were better off than those living under the Obama administration, but Vander Plaats has said that’s far from the intended meaning.

The language was meant to illustrate the larger point that too many black children today are born out of wedlock and live without the benefit of both a mother and father in the home, Vander Plaats said.